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Suresh Agarwal named MD and CEO designate of Mahindra-Manulife JV
Industry veteran to steer new 50:50 venture in India’s growing life cover market
MUMBAI: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. and Manulife have named Suresh Agarwal as the managing director and chief executive officer designate of their proposed life insurance joint venture, subject to regulatory approvals.
The 50:50 partnership, first announced in November last year, marks Mahindra’s formal entry into the life insurance arena. With Agarwal at the helm, the venture is looking to blend rural reach with global insurance expertise in what is one of the world’s fastest-growing life cover markets.
Agarwal brings close to three decades of experience spanning life and general insurance, as well as corporate and retail lending. He played a pivotal role in building and scaling Kotak’s life insurance business and later led the transformation of Kotak General Insurance, including its joint venture formation with Zurich Insurance. Known for his sharp eye on multi-channel distribution, governance and operational efficiency, he has built a reputation for pairing ambition with execution.
Currently serving as managing director and chief executive officer of Mahindra Insurance Brokers Limited since September 2025, Agarwal will step down from that role on 30 April 2026 and assume his new responsibilities from 1 May 2026, subject to regulatory clearances.
The joint venture aims to offer long-term savings and protection products tailored to India’s diverse and evolving needs. The idea is simple but powerful: combine Mahindra’s strong presence in rural and semi-urban India with Manulife’s global capabilities in agency building, product development and underwriting, particularly for urban customers.
Mahindra Group executive vice president and member of the group executive board Puneet Renjhen, described life insurance as a key pillar in India’s push towards deeper financial inclusion. He said the partnership, backed by Mahindra’s trusted brand and governance standards along with Manulife’s global expertise, is well placed to build a customer-focused franchise. With Agarwal’s appointment, he added, the business is set to scale with discipline and long-term value creation at its core.
Manulife chief marketing officer for Asia and principal officer for the proposed insurance JV Harshal Shah, called India one of the most compelling long-term opportunities in global life insurance. He said the company had been deliberate in choosing both the timing and the partner for its India entry. The ambition, he noted, is to become the first choice for customers through a digital-first approach and solutions tailored to varied protection needs.
With leadership now in place, the Mahindra-Manulife venture is gearing up to turn intent into action, bringing fresh competition and renewed energy to India’s life insurance landscape.
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YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
